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Category Archives: doing it wrong
Pretty Bird
For the second time recently I’ve heard a loud bang in the kitchen and ran outside and found a conked out bird on the deck.
If I wrote about it last time I can’t find it.
I ran out there and carefully picked it up in a t-shirt while assuring it that I would take care of it until it could fly away. I put it in a little box and left it outside.
The issue is we have two cats that hang out in the yard and target the bird feeders. One of them I can chase off. The other doesn’t care what I do except when I run the sprinkler.
I have found feathers out there more than once.
The hurry was to keep the stunned bird away from the cats until it regained its wits. Last time it took about 45 minutes and it was a sparrow.
This time it took only about 20. Look how pretty it is.
The first time I checked on it a bunch of times and it took awhile to fly away. This one zoomed away the first time I checked.
I wonder how many times this has happened and I didn’t know about it? I’m going to get some stickers or whatever you’re supposed to do for the window to save future birds.
Today’s Lesson is About Bunnies
Once I started seeing it, I couldn’t stop seeing it.
There are little bunny turds all over my front and backyard. 😂
I still don’t mind the bunnies. They are so cute. Everyone I talk to in the neighborhood comments on all the bunnies. And then I talked to someone in Portland who mentioned all the bunnies. Then someone in Seattle. Then an author I follow who is in rural Washington.
Is this a big year for bunnies?
I asked my search engine. This is the quick version.
According to WA Fish and Wildlife there are a bunch of species (rabbits and hares) native to WA plus 2 species introduced. Also there a number of articles about people letting their pet rabbits go in the wild. Why would anyone do this?
(There’s a neighborhood east of us that is known for its feral rabbit population. This is an older article about it.)
The most common neighborhood bunny is the Eastern Cottontail (even their name is adorable!) They were brought to WA a long time ago as a game species and they adapt well to urban living.
It is normal for them to have boom population years.
It’s funny how often I will pull clips from my camera card and there will be an animal in the front: raccoon, opossum, skunk. And the bunny will be in the background.
Here is an 8 page PDF from WA Fish & Wildlife if you want to increase you bunny knowledge.
The Mange
Finally! Something I’ve never caught on camera before.
Little mangey raccoon kit. It is so funny and tiny. Other than being bald it seems active and curious.
The new camera has sound, too, so you can hear them drink and squeak if you listen carefully.
I only caught them on camera this one time which is probably a good thing. One website suggested I report it to wildlife officials. I don’t know where they went. Reporting their existence doesn’t seem helpful.
I recognize the mama. She didn’t look too healthy previously and she’s looking pretty ratty here.
Tough out there for urban wildlife.
New Trail Cam
I can’t remember how long ago the trail cam died. It took me forever to replace it and then it took awhile for me to put it out there.
I haven’t seen shots of the backyard in months and the first time I pulled the camera card all the usual suspects appeared: skunk, both opossums, bunnies, and raccoons.
Look how many raccoons — five? Most of the clips don’t have this many. Busy night for the raccoon family.
Woo! Girl
The Backstreet Boys are doing a residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas. They were big in the mid-90s and I was never a huge fan. But a clip from this tour showed up in my social media which is how I know they are still performing together.
I thought I had more posts about the Woo! Girl (Here’s One) but they aren’t coming up in my search.
The Woo! Girl is a person who we have run into at every concert we have ever been to. She’s usually sitting in front of us or behind us and she enthusiastically screams WOO! during the whole show.
When I was younger, I thought the Woo! Girl was there to punish me. But now that I’m older, I love having the Woo! Girl show up and do her thing. We can be Woo! Girls no matter how old we are — the Woo! Girl brings the enthusiasm and joy to the show.
A clip from this tour showed up in my social media and I cracked up when I heard the Woo! Girl still doing her thing.
Me All Starry Eyed
Screenshot used w/o permission from artist’s youtube
Asia was a super group in the early 80s made up of people that only old people and the stray youth that likes classic prog rock has heard of from Emerson Lake & Palmer and Yes. I had their debut on cassette and listened to it a million times in my 1972 Karmann Ghia.
The Internet says there was a second album called Alpha that sounds vaguely familiar but I don’t remember following them after that. The Internet also says the band as remained active almost continuously since 1981. I did not know that and honestly haven’t thought about them in years until I heard them in Fred Meyer last week. Kind of like Gray’s Anatomy — this thing is still on?
I was delighted to be reminded of song. As we were leaving Fred Meyer I said to Bob: Do you think you can find Fred Meyer Friday Morning Playlist on Apple Music?” (I don’t have Spotify.)(I have Apple Music and don’t know how it works or how playlists work. I do manage to pull up obscure music from the 80s and Apple Music tries to find things to recommend based on that.)
I said: Did you hear that song by Asia, the supergroup from the 80s?
Bob said: I did. It was terrible. I wanted it to stop.
The song is called Only Time Will Tell. It starts out with a bright synthesizer opening, like a graduation march, that then slows down into a moving heartfelt ballad about an ending relationship. I remember driving around singing this to myself after my senior year boyfriend dumped me right before prom.
I love it.
RIP OZZY!
Approximately 1990, Hollywood.
Can’t believe it. What a legend.
EDITED TO ADD:
I restarted my memory and came up with the story to go with this picture. The photo was taken at my job where we rented film cameras. This was for a video for Bill Ward who was the original drummer for Black Sabbath.
Here’s the video. You can see Ozzy wearing the jacket in the video:
I got in trouble because they asked us if they could do camera tests in our facility but really they were filming these inserts for the video and didn’t have to pay for it. I was in my 20s and an assistant. What did I know? Where were my supervisors?
We got to hang out with Ozzy for the day. I was too shy to ask for a photo. A colleague asked and that’s how I have the photo.
Fated Mates Podcast
If everything goes as planned I will be on today’s Fated Mates podcast. Actually Pen Name is on the podcast. I talk about my romance books and writing as a Native author.
I really love this podcast and I was so thrilled to be asked. I enjoyed talking to Sarah and Jen. But also I’m paranoid that I’m not very interesting. I did my best!
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Potatoes on the Loose
I harvested my first figs yesterday. Four more today. And we’ve harvested 2 tomatoes.
Everything is delicious.
What do you think is going on here?
Bob and I went to see the new Wes Anderson movie, The Phoenician Scheme, a week or two ago and afterward had some dinner. This was outside the restaurant.
Potatoes escaping? A potato sack incident? A potato fight?
We’ll never know.
I had grand plans to write an actual post tonight but my administrivia took too long and I had a technical snafu and I need to get off the computer and off to do other things.
I did do a bunch of writing this weekend. More information when I get further in.
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The Stacks
We love Wes Anderson and loved the gift of this book. We also love Project 562 which was photography project that that photographed all federally recognized Tribes and Alaska Natives villages although when we got it, we thought our niece’s photo would be in it. I think she was in the Instagram feed and that’s how we got that idea. She’s not in the book but it’s still a really awesome collection.
Then I went to the Portland Art Museum to see the art of Oscar Howe, a Yanktonai Dakota artist from South Dakota and I loved his art. I loved it so much I went to the exhibit twice.
I normally would not buy a book from an art exhibit but I couldn’t help myself and I distinctly remember saying to my husband: I don’t want to become a household with a giant stack of coffee table books.
You can see how that’s going. No more coffee table books.
This was in the sculpture garden during our New Orleans trip. It reminded me of our book stack.
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